Transcranial Low Level Laser Therapy Dosing

Transcranial Low Level Laser Therapy Dosing

“Thanks so much for the website. I’ve found the low cost led array to be exponentially more effective than a $1000 one marketed to physicians that I’ve owned and used for the last 5 years.”
-Ray (quoted with permission)

Introduction

As many of you know I like to pick a pattern (or two) from the scientific literature to follow when I’m performing experiments on myself.

The best patterns for transcranial LLLT with LEDs are the two Naeser studies from 2011 (R) and 2014 (R).

The reason they are two of the best studies is that we can easily imitate them with VERY affordable LED arrays found on Amazon: 96 LED Array.

Let’s take a look and get some inspiration for our own experiments, shall we?

We shall!

Naeser 2011 and 2014

The two Naeser studies used LED arrays on 13 total brain injury victims which caused remarkable recovery of function years after the trauma.

Given the prevalence of CTE, TBI, PTSD, Alzheimer’s, age related cognitive decline, etc. this modality has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of millions of people.

And I’m gonna show you how to do it for $40 instead of $4,000!

Read on.

Array of Light

The LED arrays ultimately used (they started with something slightly different) in the two studies had 61 diodes.

52 of those diodes were 870 nanometer (nm) diodes and 9 were 633 nanometer diodes.

They looked a little something like this.

The little X in the middle of the array is made up of the 9 633nm diodes and the other LEDs constitute the 52 870nm diodes.

The 870nm and 633nm refer to the two different wavelengths of light emitted by the diodes.

What is a wavelength? It’s this.

So, wavelength is the length from crest to crest (for our purposes).

What is a nanometer?

If you divide up a meter stick into a billion equal segments, each of those segments is one nanometer in length; ie. a nanometer is one billionth of a meter or another way of putting it is that 1,000,000,000 nanometers = 1 meter.

Anyway, the point is that the distance from crest to crest on a wave of light is miniscule and when it comes to LLLT, wavelength is one of our most important parameters.

The light must be certain wavelengths (870nm is a good one) in order to penetrate far enough and stimulate the proper electrons (through photoexcitation) in cytochrome c oxidase of the electron transport chain.

The 870nm diodes emitted 12.25 milliwatts (mW) of power each and the 633nm diodes emitted 1mW each.

“mW” stands for milliwatts which is 1/1000 of a Watt. Another way of putting it is that 1000 milliwatts = 1 Watt.

So, 52 of the 870nm diodes were emitting 12.25mW of power each.

That comes out to 52 x 12.25 = 637mW (my 6th grade math teacher said to always show my work!).

The 9 633nm diodes were emitting 1mW of power each.

That comes out to 9 diodes x 1mW per diode = 9mW total.

So, our total milliwatts of power is 637mW + 9mW = 646mW of power.

As you have likely surmised, the 870nm diodes are doing most of the work here and the 633nm diodes probably don’t have much of an effect (though they might have a small one!).

The Joule of the Nile

The dose they ultimately settled on in the two Naeser studies was 13 J/cm2.

One cm2 looks like this.

Now we’re gonna shoot some light at that square!

Light comes in individual wave-particles called photons.

Each photon carries a tiny amount of energy (for my fellow nerds out there the energy of a photon is represented by the Planck-Einstein relation E = hf…but this doesn’t concern us here.).

That energy is measured in units called Joules.

Energy measures the ability of something to do work.

Work is the ability to cause displacement in the direction of a force.

I basically think of work as the ability to cause movement or the ability to cause something to move.

You perform work on something when you make it move.

If I shove my little brother, I do some work.

If I shove him really hard, I do more work.

If I shove a massive MMA fighter, I get worked.

Easy, big fella.

In the case of LLLT, the photons from our LEDs are absorbed by electrons in mitochondria, cause them to become excited and jump to higher energy state, and therefore do extra work. Beautiful!

Where To Buy

About lostfalco@gmail.com

Over the past decade I've taken 500+ substances and performed thousands of self-experiments to improve my brain and my life. And now, I'm here to share with you the best of the best so that you can achieve life-changing results in a fraction of the time at fraction of the price. You won't find information like this anywhere else in the world! So, read on to discover how to attain the mind, and the life, you've always wanted.

Would traversing the light back and forth at a steady pace across the frontal lobes for an equivalent dose time achieve the same effect and mitigate the small focal point issue? Or does the light need to be directed in one place continuously to penetrate and stimulate?

It would likely have a slightly different effect but it’s worth a try. A handful of the studies have tested it that way and had good results. I’d say try both, see if you notice a difference, and go with what seems to work best.

Yeah Lee, for transcranial LLLT it is pretty weak. I’m pretty sure you can get the CCTV devices I mention in Europe. They are way cheaper and worth a try first imo.

Two weeks might be long enough to show a small difference in an MRI. I wouldn’t expect anything huge. That’s a fascinating experiment though! Definitely let me know if you end up testing out LLLT and if it affects your MRI.